Motivating employees
This Article was posted on 04.02.11 in Growth and Managing
Most employees spend less than half their time at work being genuinely productive. For the business owner, this can be frustrating and seem like a waste of money. However, the employer can often be a major contributing cause of the problem. Almost all employees can be productive if they feel they are part of a valued team and are helped to feel enthusiastic and motivated.
What is motivation about?
Motivating your employees is about finding a way to make your staff enthusiastic about the work they do and keen to do the job to the best of their ability. While your own enthusiasm for the business can be infectious and rub off onto employees, sustained motivation is usually best achieved through a combination of personalised incentives, rewards and recognition.
Bear in mind that the recognition, rewards and incentives that appeal to you are unlikely to have an equal appeal for all your employees. People will be motivated to varying degrees by a number of options including money, recognition, training and opportunity, travel, flexi-time, more responsibility, the challenge of new projects, or the feeling of making a difference.
While everyone would appreciate more money as a sign of appreciation for work well done, it is seldom effective as a motivator on its own. Most people need to feel valued and that there is an opportunity for them to grow with the business and appreciate the freedom to choose rewards that match their own set of priorities.
Some motivation tips:
- Give each person a good, comfortable working environment and the right training and equipment for the job.
- Keep them informed about business performance and management decisions.
- Ask employees for their views before making decisions which affect them.
- Manipulating and bullying employees simply does not work. It leaves them demotivated.
Build trust and teamwork
Build up an atmosphere of trust and teamwork, not defensiveness and fear. A company run on fear is a miserable place to work, full of people who avoid making decisions in case they are wrong. It is better to foster an environment that avoids blame and acknowledges mistakes are an inevitable part of the learning process.
- Open and honest communication is important. Encourage people to ask for help when difficulties arise and schedule regular appraisals for employees, to review progress, problems and plans.
- Encourage employees to do most of the talking during these sessions, by using open questions like: “How well do you feel you are doing?”
- Take an interest in people’s lives and be prepared to chat about the things your employees are interested in. Listen actively to whatever people have to say.
- Be consistent and fair in your approach and build team spirit through regular briefings. Use short daily or weekly meetings to plan work, establish goals and discuss any special events and deadlines.
- Use these meetings also for debriefings, to share any news and problems and give employees credit for their achievements.
Agree on business goals
People will not be motivated until they know what is expected of them. Your vision and goals for the company need to be turned into practical, achievable goals for the individuals working in it. If employees can see how their success contributes to the big picture, they are more likely to feel motivated and enjoy being part of the team.
Try to ensure that employees can influence the results they are being asked to achieve and agree on targets that allow both you and the employees to monitor performance.
Reward employees for achieving their goals — with money, praise, or opportunities to run new projects. Give everyone a chance at success. If employees understand problems, they can often come up with solutions themselves.
Give timely feedback
Respond to people’s successes and failures as soon as possible, so they can make any necessary adjustments.
Let your employees know when they are doing well, and when they are doing badly. In giving feedback, it pays to remember that your objective should be to improve performance, encourage learning and build your employees’ motivation and self-esteem. Any feedback that doesn’t contribute to these goals is counterproductive.
Keep your messages of praise and criticism separate and don’t end a conversation with a criticism. If you need to criticise, don’t do it when you are angry and avoid getting personal. Rather than criticising the person, describe the negative consequences of an action. Once the message has sunk in, encourage the employee to come up with ways to improve their performance.
Most employers find it all too easy to complain about employees’ mistakes. Aim to praise people’s achievements ten times as often as you point out errors and frame criticisms constructively, in ways that will help people make improvements.
Listen to your employees
Listen while employees talk. They may have spent a long time thinking about the matter under discussion, and they may have excellent ideas. Acknowledge their opinions, even if they are at odds with your own. Try putting yourself in their shoes and give people room to save face, especially after criticism, failure or disappointment. Riding roughshod over employees leads to poor morale, low productivity and a high staff turnover.
You can never win an argument with an employee. The loser will become demotivated, and that’s not in your interests as an employer. If disagreements arise, limit the damage. Start by separating facts from opinions, then emphasise the areas where you agree.
Helping people progress
You can help people progress from being beginners in a role to the point where they enjoy real competence and take full responsibility:
- People that do not know where to start need clear, confident instruction. New employees or employees you’re asking to take on new tasks will need to be told what to do, and how to do it.
- Once the basics are in place, coaching helps the employee build up skills and develop a feel for the job. You can teach the more advanced skills as soon as the individual is ready to learn them.
- As the employee becomes more involved in the task, the manager’s role is to support, rather than give information. Continued encouragement helps build the confidence of even experienced people.
- Once full competence is achieved, the trust placed in the employee by management becomes a major motivational force. Give generous recognition for good work.
Recognise ambitions
Look for opportunities to make people’s jobs more satisfying, like increasing job variety, and help everyone feel that they are a valued part of the team.
Identify which employees are ambitious and which are likely to be content to stay in the same jobs. Giving ambitious employees the chance to shoulder more responsibility increases their motivation.
You risk losing talented employees if they are under-used, frustrated or bored. Ask them what you could do to make their jobs more rewarding.
Motivational carrots
Remuneration packages play an important role in motivating employees. But every employee is different and what motivates one employee may be of little or no interest to another. To tackle this, some companies offer a ‘salad bar’ approach to remuneration that allows staff to pick and choose their benefits package.
The most visible or obvious part of any remuneration package is the salary, which can be made up of several elements, including basic pay, commission, or profit-related bonuses and other benefits. But for many employees, these are not the main or only motivators.
Other employees may be more motivated by ‘flexitime’ arrangements that allow them time for parenting or care-giving responsibilities, and others are motivated by recognition for a job well done. Rewarding staff with company ‘team-bonding’ events and days out can also be effective.
Use recognition
Recognition for a job well done is a powerful, but often overlooked, motivator. Congratulating an employee publically for a job well done will not only boost that employee’s self esteem and motivation, but could also encourage others to try harder.
Pay as a demotivator
It’s easy to assume that cash motivates people, but pay can also be an effective way of undermining motivation in your business. Be aware that every pay packet sends a message, and employees are sensitive to its nuances:
- If you pay less than the competition, you can expect to have demotivated employees.
- If you give rises only when people threaten to quit, you are rewarding disloyalty.
- If you pay higher rates to attract new employees, current employees will resent it.
- If you use year-end profit as a target for bonuses, employees will not see a direct link between their efforts and their bonuses – the delay is too long. In addition, people know the profit figure may be altered for tax reasons and only a few employees may believe their efforts can influence the result.
Use bonus schemes
Bonus schemes can play an important part in fine-tuning employees’ motivation, but they also have their pitfalls. Some tips:
- Bonuses linked to clear targets for individual performance will encourage individual effort, but not teamwork. Each person should only have one or two immediate targets to aim for.
- Bonuses linked to company profits can promote teamwork, as long as individuals can see how they can affect the figures. Team goals could include sales, margins, costs and employee punctuality.
- People are more motivated by short-term goals than distant goals, so bonus targets are more effective if they are set monthly, with more immediate feedback.
- Be careful of unforeseen side effects. For example, bonuses based on short-term goals may actually damage long-term profit. A sales person on commission may neglect after-sales service and harm the company’s reputation. Similarly, staff could hold back orders or bring them forward to boost the sales figures for any one month.
- Bonuses should be on top of basic pay. Reducing pay to fund a bonus scheme will do more harm than good. Bonuses need not be large to be effective.
Next steps
- Meet with key staff to develop suitable motivational incentives and start building an atmosphere of trust and teamwork through clear and effective communication.
- Take an interest in employees to align their goals and interests with your business goals.
- Help employees to grow by setting challenging but not impossible goals.
- Give timely feedback that avoids personal criticism and focuses instead on performance issues.
Content provided by The Small Business Company
